


Wednesday

by susiephalange



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Amputation Humour, Amputee Bucky Barnes, Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Cutesy, Dancer!Reader, F/M, Female Reader, Fluff, POV Bucky Barnes, Punk, Punk Bucky Barnes, dark humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 09:05:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11033055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiephalange/pseuds/susiephalange
Summary: Every Wednesday, without fail, there was a girl who’d run through the conjoined classrooms in E Block. She’d always have her satchel bursting at the seams, and be wearing the same thing. Black leotard with ruched shoulders, tights. Hair falling out of a scrappy bun. Worn out military boots.Bucky Barnes got out of the military, but not after his arm decided to leave him first. Now, in university, he's trying to make something of himself, but that's all fine and well but he can't help but notice the girl who'd interrupt his advanced physics class...





	Wednesday

**Author's Note:**

> I had a dream about Punk Bucky Barnes, and I decided to write. Also, I Googled Punk Bucky, and one of my favourite Tumblr artists came up, and well I've put a link [here](http://illustratedkate.tumblr.com/post/119462387097/cute-cap-2-punk-crew-for-a-commission-i-had-so) so you can see her work! Okay, so I have a lot of feelings, and there is a lot of weird humour here, but hope you readers enjoy readin'!

Every Wednesday, without fail, there was a girl who’d run through the conjoined classrooms in E Block. She’d always have her satchel bursting at the seams, and be wearing the same thing. Black leotard with ruched shoulders, tights. Hair falling out of a scrappy bun. Worn out military boots. The only reason Bucky noticed her was she _constantly_ interrupting fourth period advanced physics. At first, he didn’t really see her at all, she was just another person. A human on earth, an ant to a boot. Someone he’d forget about come graduation when everyone was not magically hired to companies, and were as broke as ever, just with a diploma. But really, it was Nat who reminded him of this mystery girl, over nips at their favourite bar.

“You think you’re so cool pretending not to see _________ when she cuts through the room,” The redhead smirked into her beer, and taking a drink, drank her laughter along with the stuff Bucky wasn’t that fond of. “I can see straight through you, Barnes.”

Nat was the kind of punk who just how scary they were, and owned it. She was a litany of snark and lip piercings and tattoos over the scars of her past. Bucky had trouble picturing her as a little kid with red ponytails – he wasn’t sure if it was her harsh undercut, or the way her knuckles were always caught in a cycle of healing, and bruising. He could see her as a child who gave too much lip, and tore her pinafore, and ran off to join the army. That’s where he met her, but they’d both been kicked out before any real damage happened. Read: Nat losing her arm too. It had just been a week until return to home soil. He only wore jackets and gloves over the prosthetic, even in summer. It added to the punk aesthetic.

“Who?” He asks. The name doesn’t ring a bell, though it is a nice name.

Nat laughs again, but she doesn’t elaborate. Instead, she’s turning, and has seen someone in the bar, and calls out to them. Usually, Sam and his girls would hang out here, or even Steve in the back with his little sketch book, but when the person Nat is beckoning comes over, Bucky can’t think right.

It’s her.

“__________! Please, introduce yourself to James. He’s an idiot and doesn’t have good taste in human beings. Present company included,” Nat grins, making her snakebite rings tilt against her painted lips.

At once, _________ puts her hand out toward him. Her hand is the same size as Nat’s, but it doesn’t have a tattoo of a star, split into shards. But it’s then Bucky realises that if that’s the hand she’s given him, that means…

Nat shakes her head. “See? He can’t even call his social life shots.” She scoffs, but as she flashes ________ one of her priceless, pseudo-seductress smiles that led many a person into her bed, she also shares a weak look of acquiescence with him, as if to say _oh my freaking dog I’m so sorry I forgot_.

“Wait, you’re James Barnes?” She repeats the name Nat had given. “I’ve heard so much about you! I’m sort of a friend with Steve. He likes to come and watch us practice.” At this, she flags down the bartender, and after she orders something too sweet, too bubbly, and too alcoholic for the meds he’s on, adds, “He’s always chatty after practice.”

Bucky raises a brow. “Practice? Is that where you’re always running to?”

________ laughs. He’s not sure if he’s drunk already, or that it’s the nicest laugh he’s ever heard, and he’s heard a few dozen people in his life time laugh at him. She tilts her head back, her (h/l) (h/c) hair falling everywhere, but it doesn’t look messy. It looks like art.

Yep. He’s probably drunk.

“I’d have thought you’d have figured out by now,” she titters, “I’m a dancer. Bachelor’s degree.”

Bucky takes a swig of his drink, processing. It explained the leotard. Just not the fact that she was always running late. “Dancer?” He muses, but the words probably come out less than elegant. “Like _West Side Story_?”

Nat chuckles. “Yeah, buddy, like _West Side Story_.” From her grungy wallet, she whips out cash to pay for _______’s drink, and a tip for the bartender whose brow sweat Bucky can relate to on almost a spiritual level. “Alright. While you two keep chatting up, I have a booty call to attend to.” She winks at him, and ascends from the barstool like she’s an otherworldly being and not the 5”3 crimson horror.

But all the wit has left him for the night, and as ________ claims Nat’s stool, all he can think about is the assignment that needs to happen as soon as possible, and that he used to be able to sing the alphabet backwards as a kid.

“So, you know Steve?” he stammers. He sounds like a fourteen-year-old in his adult body, but the words have already left his lips, and there’s no going back. What happened to the suave as midnight, rotten-to-the-core punk Bucky the world knew him as?

She nods. “Yeah. I didn’t realise we took Professor May’s portraiture together until the seating arrangement changed, but yes. He practices form when we’re dancing.” She takes sips between sentences, acting more her age than Bucky sure is. An afterthought, she adds, “I probably should work on my project…”

Buck nods. Before he’d run off and joined the army, Steve was a budding artist, scraping pennies to go to school and try to learn more about the whole business. On some whim, the army had taken him in, and in return for his tours (where he’d not gotten _his_ arm blown off, lucky bastard) the military paid for his education. Neat deal.

“So, how long have you known Steve?” She asks.

He stops to think, but not long enough to remember how drunk he really is, and what that does to the filter he doesn’t have. “I can’t remember. Forever? We were in the same day-care.” He blurts.

“Nat was wrong about you, James.” She considers aloud, tipping the last of her glass up. “You’re sure as hell not an idiot.”

* * *

 

As usual, it was a Wednesday, but instead of studying in class like he was supposed to, he wasn’t. Well, nobody was, their professor had texted everyone a picture of an overflowing toilet with the text beneath reading _can’t teach gotta stop an impromptu swimming pool_. But still, old habits die hard, and he sat in the room like always, flicking through his phone trying to find a joke he’d jotted down after dreaming out it, wanting to bring it up next time he saw Steve. His pal was always hanging out with new crowds, like the hippy Wanda, and her athlete brother, and the smartass Tony who built his first computer when Bucky was still in nappies.

But it was a Wednesday. And every Wednesday, without fail, Nat’s friend _________ would run through the conjoined classrooms in E Block, regardless if advanced physics was on or not. Upon ruminating this, he heard the door push forward, and the patter of her feet as she fled through the rooms.

Curious, and for once, not distracted by the beauty of crazy maths that took his mind off the shitty realities of life after service, and able to follow, he did. His clunky boots were as quiet as they could be, as he threaded his way behind her, tracing her footsteps toward the F Block where he knew the physically-artsy people did their things. As he entered the dance room, obeying the sign to take off all shoes with hard soles before standing on the sprung floor. But when he saw the group that congregated in the centre, his breath was taken away.

In her black leotard, and tights, ________ was at the forefront of the dance troupe, surrounded by junior students, all kitted out in the standard pearl-white outfits anyone thinks of when picturing _ballerina._ They all follow her lead on the bar while the professor looked on from near where he stood. Bucky wasn’t a cultured kind of guy – perhaps the most culture he got sometimes was the fact that his clothes were made overseas, and he drank orange juice from a few states over, and ate tacos occasionally – but he could say for certain that he’d never gone to see people dance. He was rubbish at dancing himself, and moved like a sardine who’d escaped the tin on the supermarket shelf when there was music to dance to, but he wasn’t an idiot. _______, and the rest of the dancers moved like air was water, and they were swans, masters of both.

“Are you another student from Melinda’s art class?” The professor has her sleek hair pulled into a fashionable bun, eyes alert, makeup simple, yet elegant. “I don’t think I can handle another one like him watching the dancers, they get distracted when there’s handsome boys about.”

Bucky feels his face heat up. “I’m – I don’t take art, I’m a computer science student. I’m – just watching ________. A friend.” He tells the professor hurriedly, and adds, “Handsome?”

She waves the word off, almost swatting it so it flies away. “Kids these days find everyone good-looking for anything. I assume you’re quite the lady-killer from the hairstyle alone,” It sounds like a joke, and Bucky laughs. “So, computer science student watching ________ dance, what really brings you here? Youth are always chasing love these days. I suppose you are too?”

His face reddens. “I – I think I like her?” It sounds like a question. He isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be a question. “I was a bit curious as what a dancer did.”

The professor frowns. “They dance, computer science student. But that’s not all. You are a book, and I am reading you.”

“I was also going to ask her if she liked to drink coffee sometime soon,” He admits. He’s not sure why, but this professor of the dancing department has some serious vibes that make him want to spill all the beans. Bucky glances to ________, watching her as she leads the dancers into the centre of the room, executing a fancy twirl he doesn’t know the name of. He frowns, and turns back to the professor, his not-prosthetic out to shake her hand, “Bucky Barnes. And you are?”

She grins. “Professor Cho. And I know that ______ is free tomorrow after class – same time as today – and likes drinking coffee a little _too_ much.” At this, she claps her hands, and the dancers disband, and walk toward where they keep their bags, and sip water. “_______! Barnes wishes to take you to grab coffee. Tomorrow okay?” She calls out.

“Sure!” She calls out, going to her own bag. “See you then, James!”

* * *

 

Tomorrow comes faster than he can stop. It’s crazy. If he texted Nat to say he had a date, she’d freak out and call him more names than he could handle, or if Steve caught wind of the fact he was doing something other than playing around with his laptop, he’d tell Sam, and then everyone would know because Sam probably hated his guts (he wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but acting like an ass to Sam and Sam acting like one back just became the parameters of their not-quite-friendship).  So, he keeps it quiet. He showers. He washes his clothes, even using the dryer on campus. He looks at the prosthesis before fitting it for the day, and contemplates _that_ discussion. But his classes rush by like a train going through Siberia, and then _boom!_ he’s waiting outside of F Block, one hand over his messenger bag, other in heaven, R. I. P. hand.

“Hey, stranger,” ______ greets, and guides him by his good elbow in the direction of the campus coffee shop. “Let’s get coffee.”

He nods, and starts on the process of making small talk. “I had no idea what was going on yesterday. Your professor, she’s nice.”

_______ nods. “Yeah, Helen’s great. She was the youngest professor to teach here in fifty years, and she once danced on Broadway!” She beams, and adds in a lower voice, “Sorry for Professor Cho. She overheard I was going to ask you and insisted. Like, didn’t-take-no-for-an-answer insisting. She’s nice, once you get to know her.”

He understands. “It’s all good.”

A beat passes between them, and she adds, “So, at the bar you said you knew Steve since you were practically foetus, and Nat tells me you’ve known each other for years.” Bucky has a sinking feeling that he knows what’s coming next. Even though he’s hardcore and hardly ever cries (that much anymore) and paints his eyes black for concerts, he’s dreading the next words that come from her mouth. The words, they’re practically predestined to happen.

 _You always been one-handed_?

“So?” he prompts, tempting fate.

She shrugs. “I can never get friends to stay with me long enough like that,” she plays with the quick beside on her fingernails, and chews upon her lip. “You’re a lucky guy. I’ll kill to have a squad like that.”

He frowns. “Is that what the kids are calling their friends these days?” he jokes, knowing full well of the language. _______ barks out a laugh – the sort of laugh that if she’d been drinking, would have spouted all of it from her nostrils like a sort of whale. Bucky’s sigh inwardly takes days off his life as he wonders why he likened the girl he likes to a whale.

“We’re here,” he notes.

The coffee shop on campus is always teeming, full of those hipsters with odd tattoos that look like they’ve been downloaded from C list celebrities and onto their skin. Bucky isn’t fond of the coffee shop. He isn’t fond of coffee. But he drinks it. Everyone drinks it, even those who say they don’t. The last time he had been in had been a year ago and he’d gotten a nice croissant and donated money to the rescue dog fund by the cash register.

“Hey, I’ll order, and you stay here. Flat white cappuccino?” She asks, and adds, “Yay or nay?”

Bucky nods. “Yay. I’ll pay you back.”

Walking off, ______ shakes her head. “You can buy next date.”

His face is warm. _Date_.

* * *

 

His roommate had spilled energy drink over his posters when he was supposed to go out. It was a Thursday, and about three or four (or five?) months after the first date he’d had with _______, drinking mediocre coffee and walking around the campus. He was supposed to be helping with something to do with an art project, but he wasn’t sure if it was a naked model sort of gig or pasting-sequins-and-glitter-everywhere sort of gig, and he was supposed to be meeting _______ by the fountain downstairs three minutes ago.

But there was guava-smelling crap all over Jimmy Hendrix and Peaches. And the dorm door opened.

“Babe,” ______’s voice sounded pained, but as he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that she could see the tragedy of the pair of rock stars, and bent to help. Her hand brushed his, but not the one he could feel from. At this, Bucky couldn’t help it, he moved his hand away. _______ frowned. “James, what is it?”

He shakes his head, his other hand dropping the towel that too smelt of guava energy drink. “Not …. Not that hand. Please.” It was almost him pleading. If only the other goths and punks from the bar that knew him as Bucky “Take No Shit” Barnes could see him now. “I –,”

“I know you have a prosthetic,” she blurted, face reddening by the stain of blush that spread like ink upon water. “I saw Steve’s sketchbook, the drawings of your arm. He was very tipsy, and he told me about it. Sorry, I didn’t want you to know I knew from him, because he’s your best friend and all, but, it doesn’t make me feel any different about you.”

He sits there. The fear that has been chasing him for months has suddenly died and now it’s sort of empty in his head. All those intrusive thoughts – _poof!_ Gone.

“Did he say how?” He wonders.

She shakes her head. “No, he threw up on me before he got to that.” ______ takes his hand, the one they had issued to him, and in with her other hand, takes his. Her gaze is unrelenting, static, gorgeous. Damn. He might even be in love. “Dude. Say something.”

Bucky takes a breath. “Can we raincheck the art project?” He asks.

______ nods. “Yeah. Can we cuddle for like, twenty-four hours straight?” She asks.

Bucky takes a moment to consider. “It sounds impractical, but I’m up for it,” he rises, glancing to his unmade bed, strewn with all sorts of stupid comforters, and pillows he loves. “and after, I’m paying for coffee?”

_______ beams. “And I’ll pay for new posters.”

* * *

 

_It turns out that if you don’t pay attention in class, you can notice things others are blind to. Almost like seeing fairies, or little secrets you share with the world. James “Bucky” Barnes, the punk ex-military computer science student wasn’t fond of advanced physics. He was fond of sci-fi and warm patches of sunlight with chairs to soak up the morning in and someone else’s brain to relate to after all the crazy shit he’d been through._

_It so turns out that if one doesn’t pay much attention in class, they can notice the girl who runs through E Block, runs through the world, and right into their brain. The person who’s naïve, but wise, punk, but loving, fantastic, and dorky…all at once._

_It turns out that soulmates aren’t real. It’s just a story to help you sleep at night. But if Bucky Barnes had ten bucks on anything, he’d bet that his girl, the girl who ran right into his head and caught on hold of his heart, was his soulmate._

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any requests, find me on Tumblr at @susiephalange, or [@phalangewrites](https://phalangewrites.tumblr.com/request_conditions) ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ✿


End file.
